


The Making of a Man

by sbarmarj



Series: Parenthood, or Something Like It [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (sort of), Gen, Kid Fic, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:03:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7706962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbarmarj/pseuds/sbarmarj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve spoke without thinking, “I never realized parenting is absolutely terrifying.”</p><p>Clint laughed kindly. “Being an Avenger is easy compared to being a dad.”</p><p>Steve and Clint discuss the finer points of Steve's crush on Maria and Steve's feeling about her son, Sean, after the battle with Nitro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Making of a Man

**Author's Note:**

> Can't stop, won't stop...or something like that. Many of you asked for a sequel to His Mother's Son. And while I do have an idea for one, the thing I really wanted to write and Steve and Clint having a little heart to heart while Steve was still processing the reveal of Maria being Sean's mom. So here that is.

“Chinese or lebanese?” Clint didn’t exactly have to yell for Steve to hear him. Clint’s place in Bed-Stuy was actually pretty spacious, but Clint knew his teammates’ capabilities, including the reach of Steve’s hearing. Clint barely needed to raise his voice for Steve to hear him in the kitchen. 

“Chinese.” Steve yelled back immediately. Lebanese was just too close to shawarma for Steve at the moment. Clint walked into the main room where Steve was laying on the couch still covered in dirt and dust, though no longer in his Cap gear. 

“Yeah, me too.” Clint agreed to Steve’s unspoken, but not unheard commentary. “What do you want?”

“Whatever you think is good.”

Clint nodded, “Shower is all your’s. I’ll find you some clean sweats. Food should be here when you are done.”

Steve stood up slowly as a concession to his sore ribs and walked to the bathroom. He had definitely cracked two, and probably broken a third when the building came down on him. Based on previous injuries, he would be in pain tonight and stiff and sore tomorrow. The EMTs offered him painkillers, but he had turned them down. The pills might offer a few minutes of relief, but it didn’t make sense to take them when they would wear off fifteen minutes later. 

What Steve needed was rest and food, but first he was going to shower. He had eaten several MREs when he was done talking with Maria so the chance of him fainting was small. Steve had let Nat clean out his cuts, mostly just so they would heal faster, but otherwise he was still covered in the blood, sweat and grime of the battle. Getting clean, eating some real food, and sleeping for the next twelve hours was all Steve wanted to do. 

He absolutely did not want to think about the fight with Nitro, the destruction of Sean’s school, and the realization that Maria was the kid’s mom. 

Steve peeled off the scrubs that Tony had given him in exchange for his suit and stepped into the steaming shower. Tony was almost as protective of Steve’s gear as he was of his own suits and he always swooped in after a battle to make sure Steve’s gear was returned to perfect condition.

Tony had actually managed to keep his thoughts to himself when Steve told him he was going to stay at Clint’s instead of at the tower. Silence didn’t mean that Tony’s eyes hadn’t filled with rejection and hurt feelings. It was one more thing that Steve didn’t want to think about right now. 

Maybe he should’ve stayed at the tower like he normally did when he was in the City, but he just couldn’t handle Tony’s judgment or commentary tonight, and Steve never could manage to tell Tony to back off. Maybe it was Tony’s resemblance to his father, or Tony’s astounding bad manners and entitled behavior, but Steve’s attitude about Tony fluctuated between guilt for Howard’s slow blooming bitterness and adamant outrage at the other man’s actions. Neither were exactly productive emotional responses, especially when Steve was already handling more emotional turmoil than he knew what to do with.

Tony knew something happened to Steve besides their epic disaster of a mission. Even Tony couldn’t miss Steve’s odd mood when he came to check on him. Steve hadn’t offered an explanation and Tony hadn’t asked. For their part, Nat and Clint had ignored the awkwardness and kept silent. Neither of them was ever going to sell out Maria’s privacy or Steve’s feelings. 

The problem with showers is that they were excellent places for thinking. Steve remembered a time before there was endless hot water, when he had bathed in the drafty, shared bathroom for the whole floor, with little time for musing. Now though, Steve loved the reprieve of the fogged tiles and warm air and the few moments to let his mind wander and rest. But, tonight it meant his thoughts kept coming back to the battles and the fear he felt when he realized Sean was hurt. 

Steve got out of the shower to find the promised sweats and an old Buckeyes t-shirt. He dressed quickly and came out into the living room where Clint’s coffee table was covered in take out items. 

“Didn’t know what you wanted, so I ordered two of all my favorites.” Clint said, as Steve eased himself back down to the couch and accepted the chopsticks and beer Clint handed him. 

“Thanks.” Steve reached for one of the cartons, and paused when his ribs twinged sharply. Once the wave of pain passed, Steve gave the carton he grabbed a sniff. Mu shu pork, which was also one of his favorites, but he would eat pretty much anything at this point. 

“The movie okay with you?” Clint asked. He had paused it when Steve came out, but Steve recognized the opening scenes of Finding Nemo. 

“Works for me.” Clint’s love of animated films was well known and Steve couldn’t fault his taste. One time after a horrible two weeks in forests of Bolivia, Clint told Steve he liked to watch animated films after battle because there was nothing to remind Clint about what had just happened. Steve could really appreciate that sentiment right now. 

They ate in companionable silence, watching the movie but registering very little of what was happening. 

As Marlin raced through the ocean, panic rising over losing Nemo, Steve spoke without thinking, “I never realized parenting is absolutely terrifying.”

Clint laughed kindly. “Being an Avenger is easy compared to being a dad.”

A few minutes later, Clint paused the movie. “You know Lila and Cooper aren’t my kids, right? I mean they are my kids,” Clint stressed that last part. “But, I’m not their bio-dad.”

Steve put down the beer he was nursing, “No, I didn’t know that.” 

Maybe he should’ve realized it before because at the farmhouse there weren’t any pictures of the Clint holding the older kids as newborns, and there were family photos with another man in them now that Steve thought about it. 

One more thing to add to the long list proving he was pretty obtuse. 

Instead of turning the movie back on Clint kept talking, “It’s different to become the parent of a kid, than to decide to have a baby. Not bad different, it’s just there was this moment when Laura and I were dating when Cooper darted out into the street after a basketball without looking for traffic. Hell there weren’t any cars in the road, and my heart still stopped. I have never been so scared.”

Clint took a sip of his beer, “It’s the moment I realized Maria and Laura were a thousand times braver than I had ever imagined. Parenting is some scary shit dude.”

“What did you do?” Steve asked.

“About what?”

“Realizing how scared you were that something might happen to Cooper.”

Clint laughed, “I told Cooper I loved him, and he could never ever scare me like that again. And then I called Maria and asked her what the hell she was thinking when she introduced me to Laura. There was no way I was cut out to be a dad.”

Steve focused on the part he found most interesting. “Wait, Maria introduced you?”

“And performed our wedding ceremony once I got my head on straight.” Clint added, “It’s annoying how often Maria is right. She told me that if my heart stopped then I probably already was a parent.”

Steve nodded. He was beginning to see Clint’s point though he wasn’t sure what to make of it. Steve knew he cared about the kid in a way that could only be called parental, and he knew he was attracted to Maria, but he didn’t see them having the same happy ending as Clint and Laura. 

“How does Maria know Laura?” Steve knew he was fishing, but his curiosity was rampant. Plus, while Clint was completely respectful of a person’s privacy, he was also an unrepentant gossip. It had been a SHIELD maxim that Nat gossiped as a way to collect intel. Clint collected intel as a way to gossip. 

Clint looked at Steve bewildered, “You and Maria really don’t talk about stuff do you?” 

“We communicate very well with each other.” Steve responded defensively, and he knew the formal response would tip off Clint the fact Steve was mostly referring to their professional interactions. 

“You and Maria are too well matched in some ways.” Clint sighed, “So good at your jobs, so bad at intimacy.”

Steve wanted to disagree. He had been good at intimacy before. He built real friendships based on deep trust and emotional exchanges. His relationship with Peggy had been far more emotionally intimate than it was physical. That was mostly a result of the long separations and war conditions, but Steve had loved her letters and their quiet dinners in the mess hall where they talked about favorite artists and critiqued political cartoons. He wanted that intimacy with any woman who also shared his bed. 

Steve wished he could blame his awkward dates and Nat’s unsuccessful fix ups on the various women he had tried to get to know. Steve knew that would be disingenuous though. He was the reason those dinners always stalled at small talk. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t talk about his family; he clammed up when asked about his friends; and refused to share his hobbies with women who were just slightly more than strangers. Steve hadn’t been like this before, but more than just his body froze in the ice, and his heart was taking longer to defrost. 

The lack of emotional intimacy hadn’t stopped him from having sex with several of them, but it was the reason he had felt unsatisfied afterwards. He and Maria might not talk, but when they did there was no pretense. The moments he spent with Maria were more genuine than any of his interactions with Sharon ever were. 

“We might not talk about our feelings, but we both know what is going on,” Steve clarified.

Clint gave him a long look that made Steve want to squirm. Clint usually left stuff like this to Nat, and Steve was really wishing he was being interrogated by the red head. Nat was brutal, but Clint was worse. Nat was an incredibly well trained interrogator and she hadn’t had many lessons in boundaries. Clint’s actions came from a deep seeded humanity that seemed impervious to trauma. Nat always said she assumed everyone lied so she looked for their untruths whereas Clint saw the truth in people because he never lied to himself.

“Maria doesn’t love lightly Steve.” Clint paused, weighing whether to keep talking. “Laura’s first husband was Maria’s battle buddy from basic training for the Marines. I don’t know why they bonded, but they were closer than siblings according to Laura. Maria loved Brian, so she loved Laura. Laura is Maria’s family because Maria choose her and Laura considers herself pretty lucky about that.” Clint added a little more harshly, “Laura would want me to make sure that you know that if you hurt Maria or Sean and Laura will make Ultron look like a teddy bear.”

Clint didn’t add that he would be right there with Laura, but Steve knew Clint’s loyalty to Maria was based on more than her friendship with his wife. It was heart-warming to realize there were people who recognized Maria’s value--who loved her enough to protect her, even if she was strong enough to protect herself. It also burned to realize that Maria had those people in her life and Steve knew nothing about them because Maria kept him at a distance. 

“Brian was killed during his third tour--an. I.E.D.” Clint rubbed his red eyes, but kept talking. “I don’t know how Laura did it. A three year old, a newborn, and her husband dead. She swears it was Maria who pulled her through. Maria who was busy with her first year of motherhood, and tearing out her hair to be stuck working on the base instead of deployed. Shit, no wonder she made it look easy running SHIELD.”

Steve could see the picture Clint was painting. Maria a sea of resilience, and Laura an anchor of strength. Both dealing with their loss and supporting each other. He suspected Laura had been as vital to Maria surviving that period as Maria had been important to Laura. 

“Do you think that is why people ignore her?” Steve asked. It was lost on him how people never noticed Maria. They got memos from her, they complained about her management, and they objectified her, but they ignored her unfailing competence, graceful leadership, and quiet strength. 

“What?”

“Do you think people at SHIELD ignored Maria because she always did her job so well?”

Clint answered quickly, “No. I think people ignored Maria because she isn’t what they want her to be.” He continued bitterly, “At the circus, people loved to see me in my costume and admire my trick shots, but if they saw me the next day as the underfed kid trying to figure out how to find the laundromat when he couldn’t read they just ignored me.”

Steve nodded. He had been ignored in much the same way before the serum. Too small, too weak, too sick--it was easier to pretend Steve wasn't there than to make the effort to care about him. 

Men saw Maria, with her beauty, and they expected someone who would be nice when they were rude, conciliatory when they were angry, and obliging when they were demanding. When she was none of those things, most men wrote her off, even as she surpassed them professionally. Steve thought it was more complicated with women, but the end result was the same. Maria was often on her own. 

Steve knew Clint wasn’t one of the men at SHIELD who had been threatened by Maria’s confidence or hurt by her indifference. 

Like Sam, sometimes it was clear why Clint was so easy to be around. Bucky would have loved Clint’s ever present sense of humor, and Clint’s steady friendship. Steve appreciated those qualities, but like Sam, Clint had built a life on hard work in the face of expectations and disappointment. Tony’s life had never been easy, but he didn’t understand where Clint and Steve came from. Tony was always expected to be brilliant, Clint and Steve were expected to be nothing. 

It was an outlook on life Maria understood, and Steve suspected one of the reasons Clint and Maria were friends. Steve would never belittle the challenges Sharon faced, but she had an easier time of it than Maria. Sharon’s parents might have hovered a bit too much, but their daughter had been showered with attention and love. Sharon’s own entry to SHIELD had been eased by her last name, though her hard work cemented her place and ensured her promotions. 

Steve knew just enough about Maria’s childhood to know it had been filled with a different type of trauma and pain than Sharon’s. Maria’s place at SHIELD had been won with determination and grit, and she moved up the ranks by pouring herself into her missions. Steve couldn’t imagine how Maria had done it and raised a kid like Sean. 

Maria deserved to world’s recognition and thanks for her work. Instead she was pushed to the side, and ignored. 

“Other than Buck and my mom, no one ever saw me either.” Steve said. After a moment, he added, “Until Dr. Erskine.”

Clint nodded with understanding, “For me it was Phil and Maria. Somehow Phil saw something in me that I didn’t even know was there. He saw some part of me that could be a hero. He convinced Fury to give me a chance.” 

Clint paused to wipe his eyes. “Jesus, you can’t ask for a better person to have your back than Phil. He got me into SHIELD and he taught me how to be a great agent, but it was Maria who taught me how to be a person. Don’t ask me how she knew that as much as I excelled at my missions, I still didn’t know the first things about being an adult. I never learned to cook eggs or do the laundry. She took me grocery shopping, made sure I separated out my whites.”

“You’re really obsessed with knowing how to do laundry.” Steve said it mostly as a joke. This conversation was far heavier than he had been expecting. 

Clint laughed, “You would not believe the amount of dirty clothes a baby generates. Jesus, at least ten percent of parenting is doing the laundry.” 

Clint sobered, and continued, “Seriously, though, Maria doesn’t waste time on someone who isn’t worth it. You guys might not talk, and she’ll never admit that she has feelings about anything, even the White Sox.” Clint stressed the last part making Steve laugh quietly. “But you matter to her Steve. She wouldn’t listen to your advice on missions, or let you spend time with Sean if she didn’t trust you. The others might not notice, but she looks at a you a second too long in briefings, and holds her breath until you check in after a mission.”

Steve wasn’t exactly sure what he was suppose to say to that, but he trusted that Clint would notice Maria’s behavior and correctly interpret her actions. Even if they weren’t her friends, Clint and Nat missed nothing when it came to a person’s motivations and feelings, however much those feelings were buried and ignored. 

Steve took a long swallow of his beer as Clint added, “And, regardless of all of that stuff, Laura says Maria’s always had a thing for blondes with great shoulders.”

Steve spit out most of his beer. “Uh…”

Clint laughed as he handed Steve one of the napkins from the take out. “And on that note, I am going to clean up this mess and head to bed.” 

Clint turned off the paused movie, and started to collect the empty containers and other parts of their shared meal. 

Steve took a deep breath and gathered his courage, “So what am I supposed to do about my feelings for Maria?”

Clint shook his head slightly, “Well I would recommend using your words like you did tonight.” Steve bit his tongue and resisted pointing out that Clint did most of the talking. “I have no idea Steve.Trust your gut and do what feels right tomorrow.” 

Steve helped Clint carry the trash into the kitchen. “Even though this isn’t going to end well?”

Steve assumed Clint would follow his train of thought. “So the world is going to hell, it doesn’t change the fact that you care about her and she cares about you. I told Laura I loved her for the first time over a pan of burnt macaroni and cheese while Lila and Cooper were fighting over who got to choose the movie. There is no point in waiting for perfect Steve, all we get is life, and that’s never perfect.”

Steve nodded. It was the type of advice Bucky would have given him. Well, first Bucky would have told him to kiss Maria, and then Buck would have followed up with more helpful and realistic comments. “Thanks, Clint.”

“Sure thing, man.” Clint finished tidying up the kitchen. “There are clean sheets on the guest bed, and help yourself to any food you want. I plan on sleeping for a few hours and then Nat and I are heading to the farm first thing tomorrow. I should be gone by the time you wake up. Lock up after yourself.”

“Will do.” Steve followed Clint out of the kitchen. 

“And, Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“The world is going to hell, but I’ll always be your teammate. Anything you need, I am here. Got it?”

“Same for you.” Steve replied as he clapped Clint on the back. 

“And please, pretty please, let me be there when you tell Tony that you are in love with Maria Hill.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I always love knowing what you think.


End file.
